Remodeling Lives
by platedlizard
Summary: Post Ep. 26. Amon and Robin must rebuild thier lives.
1. Escaping the Void

AN: I'm sure this is complete crap, but I'm posting this thing because I'm getting sick of tinkering it. I've actually rewritten the next chapter three times already, and since I like the way the current version is going I'm going to post Chapter 1, finally. Even though I hate it. Oh well. The title for both story and chapter have nothing to do with anything. I just liked them.

Chapter 1. Remolding lives.

Miho was screaming.

Much later Amon could not recall the sound of the Factory as it collapsed around them, but for some reason Karasuma's screams still pierced his memory. Miho screamed and disappeared in the confusion of falling rubble but he couldn't afford to give her plight any thought. Robin was suddenly at his side, trying to tell him something, but he couldn't make out what she wanted over the roar of the building. Amon gritted his teeth against the burning pain in his shoulder and grabbed the girl's arm, searching desperately for a way out of the doomed building. The lights went out, plunging the world into darkness.

They were trapped. There was no way out, and no sign of Karasuma. Distantly Amon hoped that she had managed to escape, so that someone would know what had occurred down here. Dust so thick he could barely breath filled the air, filling his nose and lungs. He couldn't see her in the dark or hear her over the roar of the building, but in his grasp Robin jerked as cough after cough racked her slender frame. Hurriedly he pulled her in close and pressed the thin fabric of his shirt to both of their faces, trying to filter out the worst of the dust as he waited for their world to end. Amon felt debris hit his shoulders and knew that they had only a matter of seconds before they were crushed to death.

Sheets of flame filled the room. He couldn't see what was happening, the light was so bright he might as well have been still in darkness. The sound of the firestorm drowned out the roar of the collapsing building, a wall of sound that wasn't sound at all. The heat was incredible, all encompassing like being in the middle of the sun, but not searing. He found himself wondering what the Craft User intended to do, whether she meant to incinerate them, or save them, or if she was even thinking at all. He wondered how she could even see to use her Craft.

Overhead something broke loose, later he thought it might have been the huge cement block that had been suspended over the working part of the Factory finally crashing down to their level. All he knew at that moment was that Robin's flames had nearly been snuffed by the massive wall of _something_ that fell on them. The sheets of flame darkened and shrank, nearly touching them. Robin cried out something in a strange language, and with a renewed roar her flames rushed upwards again, sheltering and protecting the pair. The acrid scent of burning concrete and plastic and steel, mixed with the unique spicy scent of Robin's flames, filled the air, but under it Amon thought he smelled something else. Some strange chemical that must have been used in the laboratory. His eyes watered, but whether it was from the smell, or the dust, or the heat he didn't know.

Robin continued to convulse in his grip, coughs exploding from her one after the other. He could hear her now, and even see her form dimly through the light of her flames, which seemed to pulse slightly in time with her coughs. He could feel her become almost feverishly hot in his grasp. Amon adjusted his hold, wrapping the arm of the hand that had been gripping her around her waist, trying to lend her some strength. If her flames failed or she lost control of them...

Well, he didn't want to think about that. No doubt they wouldn't live long enough to regret it.

Between coughs she was trembling violently, and he wondered just how much longer she could continue to pour out the massive display of power. He'd never seen anything quite like this out of Robin. Her past usage of the Craft had nearly always been short fire-fights with other Witches or Hunters, not one long rush of flame to divert a falling building.

As if on cue, her flame faded from its unnatural intensity and he felt her slump in his arms. The Hunter flinched, expecting at any second for the ceiling to finish its collapse and crush them both, but that didn't happen. Instead as the flames died down they revealed a cavern of steel and concrete, the surface of which had been melted by the heat of her fire. Amon was amazed at the control of her Craft that Robin displayed, they had not been burned despite the intense heat she had used to shield them. One small slip and they could have been incinerated.

He looked down at the girl in his arms. Her head lolled limply to one side and he could see that her open eyes held no awareness in them. She was completely unconscious. Amon laid her down carefully on the cavern floor. He took off his trench coat and tossed on the floor next to her, neither of them would need it in the oppressive heat. Amon paced the walls, searching for a way out of the room. The walls of the cavern were formed by massive blocks of concrete and steel that had been burned into the shape of a giant protective bubble. The air had a weird chemical smell to it that made him gag momentarily, it was, however, surprisingly free of the dust that had earlier choked him. Perhaps Robin had burned that up along with the falling debris. He searched the area, fingers probing the cracks and crevices between the blocks of rubble looking for a way out of the room, but found nothing. The air seemed fresh enough, if there hadn't have been sufficient circulation they would have suffocated as Robin's flames ate all the available oxygen.

Finally he found it, a section of cracks where the air seemed cleaner as it flowed into the room. He tried to correlate the floor plan of the Factory with the position of the cavern and thought it didn't match with the position of the main corridor. Perhaps it had been an escape tunnel for Zaizen and any scientists trapped down here when the self-destruct was triggered? If so, it was blocked by the debris, but surely it would be easier for Robin to burn through a collapsed tunnel then to burn through a solid wall of rubble. He hoped that she would be up to burning through anything when she awoke.

* * *

Robin awoke to near complete darkness. She was reminded of a story Sister Mary Francis told her, about the time the Sister took a tour at the Carlsbad Caverns as a child. The tour guide had them turn off all of their flashlights and sit in total darkness for five minuets. He then struck a match. Suddenly the entire cavern was illuminated by the light from that one match, because their eyes had fully adjusted to the dark.

This was like that.

"Amon?" she called, her voice sounding weak even to herself. Something stirred next to her and the next moment she felt a large hand touch her shoulder.

"Good," he said, "you're awake."

"Where are we?"

"In the Factory. Your flame protected us from the falling debris."

Robin shivered, she didn't remember any of that. The last thing she could recall was the Witches in the Orbo tanks begging her for death...

"The others? Karasuma-san?" she asked, fighting back tears.

"I don't know, it's possible she escaped."

"Oh," Robin decided she didn't want to think about it. There was nothing she could do if the others were hurt or dead.

Except, possibly, die herself. Hastily she pushed that thought away.

"We're trapped here," Amon said. "We need to get out before SOLOMON digs down to this level."

Her eyes widened. "You mean we aren't going to wait for rescue?"

"You trust SOLOMON? The organization that nearly killed you?"

"But Father Juliano promised that he'd call of the Hunt!"

"Do you really believe that, Robin?" She flinched at his disgusted tone of voice. "Do you really believe that the man who could order the death of his only granddaughter, whom he raised, is trust-worthy?"

"Oh," Robin rolled over to her side and curled into a ball, trying not to cry in front of Amon. The last thing she wanted was to appear weak in front of him. Everything that had happened in the last few months seemed to crash down on her head. Her Hunt, The tortured Witches. Amon. Father Juliano. She shuddered. Creation, she was a genetic construct. Clone. Artificial. Was she even human?

Maria had called her Hope.

"So what are we going to do?" she asked after a moment of silence.

"We're trapped in here." Amon replied, "but I think I found a place where an escape tunnel was. It might be easier for you burn through that than through a solid wall."

Robin's heart sank. She didn't think she was capable of using her Craft just yet. She had apparently exhausted herself already saving them from the falling building. The girl closed her eyes and wished that this was over. She was so tired...

"Robin?"

She reached out blindly and grabbed Amon's arm to pull herself up, then leaned against his right shoulder. It took more energy than it should have. Robin became aware the vast void that was her stomach. She must have used an incredible amount of energy so far that day, with more to come. "We don't have anything to eat, do we?" she asked hopefully.

"No," he said. "Why, do you need to eat?"

"It doesn't matter." She sighed.

"Jesus." He shifted around and Robin could hear his deep voice rumbling in his chest. "Do you want to rest longer?"

She shook her head. "I want to leave here," she said, groping around for her glasses.

He handed her glasses to her, then helped her to her feet, gasping once in pain. Startled, Robin turned to looked up at his face, and then remembered one of the events from earlier. "Amon? Zaizen shot you. Are you injured?"

"It's nothing."

Robin frowned in the face of his stoic disregard for his body. It seemed that they were both pushing themselves past their limits. She could only hope that they wouldn't kill themselves trying to escape.

"Here," he said, gesturing to the wall. "You can see how this section fell, it isn't a solid wall of concrete. That is why I think there was an escape tunnel for Zaizen and his scientists, one that wasn't in the main computer."

Robin nodded, and adjusted her glasses. The first tongue of flame was weak, and flickered oddly, but a moment later it steadied and thickened. It ate through the wall like a cutting torch, incinerating everything in its path. Robin could feel the strength run out of her like blood from a wound, but she held firm as her flame cut farther and farther into the tunnel. Once several meters had been burned clear Robin stepped into the tunnel, Amon a silent shadow behind her.

* * *

Robin's heels snagged repeatedly on the melted floor of the tunnel, causing her to stumble over and over despite Amon's best efforts. She shook off any attempt to slow down or stop, telling him only that they needed to keep moving. Amon didn't understand her growing obsession with trying to get out, but in a way he was relieved to see a return of her single-minded focus. He had been worried back there in the cavern when she seemed ready to give in to Solomon and Fate, rather than continue fighting. That weak girl hadn't been the Robin Sena he knew. Despite this, he was worried. She had already used her power to exhaustion once, what would happen if she did it two or three times that day? Witches could and did kill themselves by over-extending their Craft. He didn't want to see that happen to Robin.

He wasn't any better off. His shoulder burned from the bullet wound inflicted by Zaizen, and he thought he could feel the Orbo move through his veins. It weakened a Witch's power and knocked them out, and now it seemed that it drove ordinary humans insane. What, if any, effect it would have on a Seed like himself was anyone's guess. He pushed that thought aside, there wasn't anything he could do about it. Still, his shoulder burned and he had to hold to hope they would be out of this hell hole soon.

Robin stumbled yet again, and fell face first to the floor. Her flames were instantly doused. Amon reached blindly down in the darkness and yanked the girl to her feet. The heat radiating off the floor wasn't hot enough to burn through his shoes, but he hated to think what it could do to tender human skin.

"Robin," he told her. "Stop. You need to rest."

She shook her head no, but accepted his support. He could feel the girl trembling with exhaustion. "No," she said. "This place stinks of death. I don't want to be here."

"I know. I don't either." Awkwardly he brought his arms up around her slender frame. She leaned into him and Amon nearly winced to feel how thin she was. Had she always been this way? He seemed to recall Master complaining that she had lost weight last night.

"I'm tired," she murmured against his shirt.

"I know," he said softly.

"It's just that I never thought I was going to be a miner." She gave a weak laugh. "Cutting through all this rock, I mean."

He blinked at the change of subject, then decided to take advantage of it. The longer she talked, the longer she rested from using her Craft. "I don't think you would be much use in a coal mine."

"No, you're right. I would blow a coal mine sky-high."

"I don't think a coal mine would explode," he said. "You would start a fire, however. Coal mine fires can be very difficult to put out. There was one in China, I think, that burned for over four hundred years."

There was a moment of silence as pure and simple as the darkness that surrounded them. Amon could almost hear the gears turning in Robin's head.

"I'll light a fire that lasts four hundred years and more," she whispered to the darkness. "One that lasts forever." With that she pushed away from him and sent a lance of flame against the end of the tunnel, pouring her strength out like water.

After what seemed like an eternity they hit a metal wall. "Robin, stop."

The girl nodded and the flame flickered for a second before she lit a piece of wood Amon had picked up somewhere in the tunnel. Amon took the torch from her, noting with alarm the way she slumped to the ground. He placed a hand on her forehead. Her skin felt feverishly hot to him, but whether that was simply from exertion or some other cause he couldn't even begin to guess. He frowned, she'd been that way back in the cavern when she lost consciousness, perhaps the fever was natural for her when she had reached her limits.

There wasn't much he could do for her here, except to keep them both moving. The sooner they got out of this vestibule of Hell, the better.

He held the torch up to the door and examined it. The wall was exactly what his first impression of it was, solid metal, a steel alloy perhaps. It had a solid metal door that looked like it had been designed by a company that produced bank vaults or locks for a nuclear power plant. The only way to open it appeared to be a keypad. Amon wished Michael was there with them, the hacker probably would have known how to open the door without triggering an alarm or a self-destruct mechanism. Then again, Amon thought, there wasn't much Michael could do without his gadgets, he would probably be as helpless as Amon.

"Robin?" She had drawn her knees up to her chest and was resting her head on them, eyes closed. Propping the torch carefully against the wall Amon knelt next to her, wondering if she was even conscious. She slowly turned her head towards him, resting her right temple on her knee. Amon couldn't be sure in the flickering light of the torch, but it seemed to him that Robin's normally brilliant green eyes were flat and gray with exhaustion. All life seemed to have drained out of them. He cursed himself, how was it that all the women in his life ended up hurt or destroyed? First his mother and Kate, then Touko, and now Robin.

Perhaps he was cursed.

"Robin, I need you to burn through that door," he told her, hoping that she understood him. He really hoped that beyond that door was a clear tunnel. He did not think she could go on much longer. She nodded, but made no effort to get up.

"Robin."

She sighed, and closed her eyes briefly. "I'm so tired. I don't think I can stand. You'll have to carry me," she said plaintively.

Amon reached over and picked her up, cradling her like a child. She curled against his chest, trembling violently. For the first time since his mother died he sent a prayer to God, asking that He would send her enough strength to carry through. Perhaps Amon's prayer was answered, or perhaps Robin had some hidden reserve of energy. The wall went up in flames, the heat vaporizing the metal. Amon saw with relief that the hallway behind it was relatively clear, and even had emergency lighting on.

Robin made a strange animalistic noise in the back of her throat and went limp. Startled, Amon looked down to discover that she was completely still. He stared at her in shock for a few seconds, then his training took over. He stepped over the melted remnant of the wall and for the second time that day laid her on the floor. He pushed her turtleneck down, fingertips probing automatically for a pulse against her white throat. His heart froze for one long moment before he felt a faint flutter and her chest rose and fell. _God_, he let his head sink to the ground next to Robin's, _what a day_. He was shaking. Amon ground his teeth together. What the hell were they doing? He didn't know where they were going, didn't know what they were doing. Buried alive as they both were, he felt as dead as the past.

Under the glare of the emergency light of the emergency lighting Robin looked pale, a waxen effigy of a saint rather than a living, breathing person. He swallowed, she looked as bad as he felt. She was clothed from neck to toe in an outfit that was supposed to be skin tight, and wasn't. It hung unnaturally loose on her, the folds of the cloth sinking in towards her body in a way that made his gut twist with worry. Amon didn't remember her looking like that earlier. He thought back to the massive outpouring of power she had earlier displayed. Had she really lost that much weight? Anything was possible with the Craft.

He felt like hell, and she looked like shit. They needed to get out of there, and whatever they did next they needed to rest. It was clear that Robin was a powerful Witch, and it was equally clear that she had her limits. In a way he felt relieved, if she had limits then Eve of Witches or not, she was human. God forbid, he could kill her if he ever needed to. He shied away from that thought.

Robin breathed quietly, the silent movement of her chest up and down the only indication that she wasn't dead. Amon touched her skin and found that it cooled significantly. She was alive, and would continue living, at least for now. He gathered her up in his arms again, and she settled into his hold trustingly, her head resting on his uninjured shoulder. One of her odd pigtails was coming out of its ribbon, he noted.

The pools of light against the dark lulled him into a kind of trance-state. Robin, whom at first seemed so light as to be almost not there, had become a heavy weight, pulling him down. The tunnel was endless, and Amon had to fight against the notion that they had really died and where now in Hell. Thirst burned in his throat and his shoulder ached abominably. Robin hadn't moved move a muscle or made a sound since falling unconscious. Her light breath was sweet in his ear.

The passage took a sharp turn to the right, and he noted with relief that it seemed to be blocked with a door. With any luck it would lead to the outside.

The door, or rather the lock for the door, turned out to be a perfectly ordinary, if rather good lock. Amon set Robin down gratefully and took from his trench coat a lock pick kit. Lockguns were all well and good, but a real professional always kept a kit with them. Traditional picks never had dead batteries or were jammed. The lock was a tricky four-tumbler system with interesting variations that took about twenty minutes to pick.

The door swung open into a hidden one-car garage. The vehicle didn't look like much, its beat-up exterior was the perfect camouflage. He laid Robin down on the back seat, and draped his trench coat over her slender body. Amon started the engine with the keys he found in the glove compartment, and pushed the button of the garage door opener he found on the dash. Silently a door rolled up revealing early morning light. Coolly and calmly he drove out, hiding in plain sight.


	2. Teh Landhair Attackes!

**Teh Lanchair Attacks!**

**Chapter 2**

* * *

Amon parked next to Nagira's law office and got out. It was a risk coming back, SOLOMON knew that they were related, and if the organization was looking for Robin the building could be staked out. There wasn't anywhere else for the pair to go, he didn't have enough cash on him to pay for a hotel, and they didn't dare use a credit card. They were filthy, covered in dirt and soot and sweat. Amon walked around to the rear door and found that Robin was coming around.

Almost against his will he reached out and touched her face, her skin was unnaturally warm. At his touch her eyes fluttered open and Amon found himself looking into two wide green pools. Mesmerizing. He was caught, as he had been that day at Harry's, trapped in her gaze. A blink, and suddenly he was free.

"Please, I don't...I don't want..." she said plaintively, her eyes glassy. Amon suspected that she wasn't truly aware of what was going on.

He hushed her, and helped the girl to her feet, holding her upright. She shivered against him, and whimpered. He ran his hand up and down her back, his heart twisting at the way he could feel her bones through her skin. Amon frowned, this weight loss wasn't natural. The STN-J was unusual in that they had so few Craft Users compared to other the other branches of SOLOMON, he'd never had to deal with a fellow Hunter who had over-exerted their Craft. Certainly Kate had never extended herself in that manner.

Robin stumbled part way up the stairs and leaned against him, and pressed her face against his vest. He sighed and ran his hand through her hair. Somewhere back in the tunnel she had lost her ribbons and her hair now hung limply around her face. "Robin," he said.

Blank green pools captured his mind again. He tore his gaze away, and wondered what Witch spell she had cast on him. To drop everything he had lived and strove for, for one slight girl. Surely that couldn't be natural.

"Robin," he repeated. "We're outside, at Nagira's. You don't have to use your Craft."

That information seemed to slowly percolate through the exhausted girl's brain. She sagged against him, and he could feel her tears soaking though his shirt. _Damn_. This was not good.

He urged her up the stairs, unlocked the door with a key he had made without his brother's knowledge, and managed to steer her to the main office. Thankfully it was a weekend and the office was empty. Amon guided her to the couch and let her collapse onto it, she curled against the cushions and was asleep instantly, exhaustion crushing her down.

The girl was out of it for the time being. He just had to hope that Juliano would keep his promise. If not, well, neither of them were capable of defending themselves at this moment. It would be short work to kill them.

He found a couple of blankets someone had stored in a utility closet and tossed one over Robin. Looking at the other blanket he sighed. He really should call Nagira first, before he fell asleep. This was, after all, Nagira's office building. Amon walked over to his brother's desk, sat down, picked up the phone, and started dialing.

* * *

The phone rang in Nagira's apartment. He groaned and rolled over and nearly didn't pick it up. He ached horribly, and his right leg throbbed from a graze caused by one of Zaizen's men before Solomon's forces took them out two days ago. The last thing he wanted to deal with was Hanamura's scolding for not coming into work yesterday. It would be just like her to bitch him out when they were both at home. He didn't know why he kept her as a secretary.

Wait, yes he did. It was because she was the only one who had managed to not quit after the second week. He didn't want to know what that said about either of them.

_Ring. Ring. Ring._

"All right! All right! I'm coming," he yelled at the phone. He got up and stumbled to the kitchen, swearing to himself that if it was Mika then he was going to fire her, even if she was an efficient secretary. It wasn't until he picked up the receiver did he realize it was his rarely used land-line, and not his cell phone, that was ringing.

"Nagira speaking," he said, suppressing a yawn and starting a cup of green tea. He never understood Robin's obsession with coffee and it was too early in the morning to start thinking about drinking anything stronger.

"It's me, I'm calling from your office," said a familiar voice over the phone.

Or maybe not.

"Heh. I knew you would make it. How's Robin?" Nagira lit a cigarette. There was a moment of silence and Nagira felt his stomach drop. "She did make it out of there with you, didn't she?"

"Yes," his little brother said, "she's sleeping right now."

"Heh. So how are you guys?"

More silence.

Nagira growled with frustration, "Geez guy, getting answers from you is like pulling teeth. So what's the problem?"

"I think..." Amon's voice trailed off for a second and Nagira nearly bit through is cigarette in frustration. "I think she's exhausted. Burned out. She burned through God-knows how many _tons_ of concrete to save us, and then getting us out. We were completely entombed."

Nagira snorted, "No wonder she's tired, then. Sounds like a normal enough reaction, so why are you worrying?"

"She collapsed twice while getting us out." Nagira thought he detected a trace of emotion, possibly guilt, in his brother's voice. "Twice. She looks like warmed-over shit."

Nagira winced. "I hope Robin's not there Bro, do not ever say a woman looks like shit where she can hear you. Personal experience."

"She's asleep."

The lawyer sighed, and pulled a notepad over, "I suppose you didn't call me to chat about what a nice little family reunion we had yesterday. So, what do you want your big brother to buy you for Christmas?"

* * *

_This is how the damned existed._

_They floated in their green hells, bodies violated with tubes and wires inserted into lungs and stomachs and other places best left unnamed. The fluid they floated in drained their life and personality away, until all that was left was a shell of suffering. Once in a while their captors, demons in human form, would become visible as they raised the green hells from where they were stored. It was then that a new member of the damned would be added, or one who was no longer useful was removed. _

_In the beginning a damned one was aware of their hell. They could feel the viscous liquid, which was not water or anything else they recognized, surround them, filling their eyes and ears. The taste of it infiltrated their mouths and minds. They could feel as it sucked away their personalities and powers, until they faded far enough to be insensible to everything. Or so their captors thought._

_Even in their extremity they knew that they were damned, and nothing could help them. That is, until She came._

_Some knew Her. Some had been hunted by Her, sent to this green hell by a vengeful goddess. Two had met Her as friends, and loved Her as they loved their daughter, with whom they were now reunited. But even those who had not met Her understood what She was, and what She could give them._

_Deliverance from the valley of tears. Salvation from the hell. Death, a sweet release from suffering. Forgiveness._

_Love._

_The damned, mindless with suffering, reached out to their savior._

"Robin!"

The girl sat bolt upright on the couch, jerked out of her dreams by the shout. She wavered, disoriented by her sudden awakening. The light was dim and greenish, and for one long horrible moment Robin thought that she was still in the Factory trapped under the rubble with the taste of the Witches', _her people's_, death still in the air, and would have to burn (and burn and burn and burn with fires like the ones that once killed _her people_) her way out. An unending tunnel in Hell...

"Robin," the voice repeated. She blinked and rubbed her eyes, the green hell and the memory of her orange flames faded. Robin shook her head and was finally conscious of the man who knelt by the couch just inches from her.

"A...Amon?"

"You were dreaming." Robin saw his silhouette shift and moved away. A moment later the lights flicked on and Amon returned with a glass of water. He handed her the glass and then silently stood over her while she drank it. It wasn't until the cool liquid touched her tongue did she realize just how _thirsty_ she was.

"Nagira's going to be here in a couple of minutes."

Robin rubbed her eyes and looked around, finally figuring out where she was. She stared blankly at the empty desks, wondering how they had come here. She could remember drilling her way out the tunnel, but she didn't remember leaving it. All she could remember was casting her Craft out again and again, pouring flame out until she thought she couldn't burn anymore, her entire world becoming nothing but flame. She shivered, a Witch could kill themselves with their Craft, if they misused it badly enough.

"Robin?"

Amon's voice startled her out of her reverie, she jumped slightly, and then blushed with embarrassment. "Y...yes?"

"Did you hear me?"

"Yes." He looked at her expectantly. "Nagira is coming over soon," she repeated dutifully. The man nodded curtly and turned to leave the room. "Amon?" He turned to back look at her. "How did we get out?"

He shrugged slightly, then winced, and Robin remembered that Zaizen had shot him in the shoulder. "The rest of the tunnel was clear, I carried you out."

"Oh." Robin blinked at the thought of Amon _carrying_ her, it seemed so... strange. But nice in an odd way. She wished she could remember it... Robin finally _looked_ at Amon and noticed that he was dressed in what appeared to be in a spare suit that Nagira kept at the office, and was clean. He must have taken a bath while she was asleep. It made her aware of how filthy she actually was. "I want to take a bath."

Amon nodded, turned and disappeared into the staff breakroom. Robin sat on the couch, her head feeling like it had been stuffed with wool. She looked down at herself, she was filthy, coated in sweat and grime. Nagira would be there any minute, but suddenly Robin didn't want to wait for him. He could wait while she had a bath, she decided. She stood up, and had the grab the couch hurriedly as the world turned momentarily red. Several long moments later, during which she concentrated on her breathing and nothing else, the red faded, and she stepped away from the couch. Shaking only slightly, Robin made her way to the stairs up to her studio.

* * *

Nagira flicked a cigarette butt and ground it out with his foot before unlocking the door to his office building, feeling strangely naked without his fur coat. While he had escaped the Factory with only a mild graze, his coat had been mauled and was now in intensive care at the tailor's. He didn't think it was going to make it, between the encounter with raw sewage a few weeks ago and having the edge shredded by bullets it was starting to look rather ratty. He snorted, it was all his brother's fault, as far as he was concerned. A quick check through the office revealed that Amon was in the breakroom.

"You owe me a new coat," Nagira told his brother as entered the room. Amon gave him one of his patent glares, designed, Nagira suspected, to destroy the glaree's ego. Too bad it didn't work on his big brother, the lawyer thought gleefully.

"I'll be sure to buy you one that's tackier then the last one," Amon said, and as usual Nagira couldn't tell if it was in deadpan or not. Heh. Sometimes he suspected his little brother's sense of humor was surgically removed.

"Heh, well, any ways, you look good in that suit." Nagira said, eyeing his suit that Amon obviously stole from him, "It's a bit big for you, though."

Silent glare.

Nagira ignored that and set the bags down on the table and looked around, "Hey, where's Robin?"

"She's taking a bath." Amon's eyes flicked upwards briefly, and back again. Nagira suppressed another grin, it probably bugged the hell out of his little brother that his partner was so attractive. And so young. Nagira decided that teasing Amon about Robin was not the right thing to do right now, but they would have to talk about it later.

"Heh, I take she's feeling better, then," was all he said. His brother grunted at that, clearly he wasn't convinced. "So," Nagira said after a moment of awkward silence, "how are _you_ doing?"

Amon shrugged, then winced. "Zaizen shot me."

"Fuck." Nagira stared at his brother. "Shouldn't you be in a hospital?"

"No." The ex-Hunter glared at his brother. "I'm fine, the bullets aren't designed to cause serious injury. I'm a Seed, so the Orbo had no effect on me, one way or the other."

"Heh. I take ityou cleaned yourself up, then." Amon didn't respond. If he wanted to ignore a wound it wasn't any skin off Nagira's nose, his brother was an adult and could take care of himself.

Just then Robin appeared at the door, freshly bathed and wearing a clean dress. Nagira discovered why Amon seemed so worried where Robin was concerned, the girl really did look like hell, even after the bath and clean clothing. She was unnaturally pale, her eyes had dark circles under them and were slightly glazed. She looked less like she was exhausted, and more like she was in shock. He frowned, according to Amon she had not been injured.

"Here, kid," he said, pulling out a chair from the table and gesturing to it, "Sit down, both of you. I brought some food since the stuff here is all pretty old. Wouldn't want my only brother and favorite kid to get sick."

Robin sat down and murmured a word of thanks. He got out the soba noodles and made a plate for her, and even remembered to give her a fork to go with it. Amon was already shoving his portion inside his mouth in such a way that made Nagira realize that neither of them had eaten in over twenty four hours.

"Well," Nagira said, "I have news."

Amon looked up sharply at that, and Nagira laughed at him.

"Yeah, news. Sakaki and Doujima are fine, Michael's got a bum leg, and Miho's in the hospital for observation."

"What?" Amon asked. Robin was slowly picking at her noodles, dividing her attention between the news of her friends, and her food.

"According to Doujima Karasuma didn't want to go in, but she, Doujima I mean, made her because Doujima suspected that Karasuma might have hit her head, or something."

Out of the corner of his eye Nagira could see Robin picking at her food, she didn't appear to have much in the way of an appetite. He frowned, that didn't seem right, somehow. She should be starving after going for so long without eating.

"Doujima say's she'll be out of the hospital in a day or two, if the doctors don't find anything wrong," Nagira continued.

"That's good," Amon said. The man glanced quickly at the girl and Nagira thought he noticed a small frown on Amon's face. So, he had noticed Robin's lack of appetite too. Somehow that didn't make Nagira feel any better.

"So, when did you talk to Doujima?" Amon asked, turning back to his brother and helping himself to some rice.

"Just before I left my place. I called her to see what information she might have had."

"I trust you didn't tell her that we survived."

"Do I look stupid? I think she guessed, but she didn't even ask, just mentioned that you two were thought to be dead under all that rubble. Something about multiple collapses, and the lack of structural integrity of the pile."

"Oh?" Amon arched an eyebrow.

"Yeah, apparently the thing's still settling. That's supposedly normal for a collapsed building like that. It might be days before SOLOMON decides it's safe enough to start digging."

"That's a relief," Amon said. Nagira looked inquiringly at his brother. "Robin cut a cavern into the debris, and I was worried that it might give away the fact that we survived."

"Heh, well, I think we three need to start making plans, and..."

_Clink._ Something about that soft sound made both the men turn to Robin. She was staring at her half-eaten plate, her for, which had made that sound, lying on the table beside her. Nagira thought she looked decidedly green around the gills.

"Robin?" he started to ask, "What's wrong?"

Robin leapt to her feet and dashed out of the room, Nagira a half a second behind her. Behind him he heard Amon leapt to his feet as well, and then trip and fall as his legs tangled in the chair's. There was the brief sound of a struggle between man and inanimate object, and normally Nagira would have gone back to point and laugh at his usually dignified younger brother. Not today. Robin had apparently reached the bathroom just in time, and Nagira could hear the sound of retching coming from the room.

Nagira knelt beside her and placed a hand on her back. He could feel her muscles knot and clench with each heave in a way that looked painful. He bit his lip, she was blazing hot through the fabric of her dress. "Hey, Kiddo, the food wasn't that bad," he said, half jokingly. The miserable look Robin gave him immediately gave him a twinge of guilt.

Behind him Nagira heard Amon finally limped into the room, the chair having clearly won Round One.

Finally she stopped, just before he wondered whether she was going to bring up her toenails. The girl made an odd whimpering noise in the back of her throat before sagging against Nagira for support. "Jesus," he said, "you poor kid. My brother was right."

"I'm sorry."

Amon sat down on her other side. "For being sick?" The girl pulled her knees up to her chest and hid her face in them, nodding. The ex-Hunter sighed and gave Nagira a bewildered look. "There's nothing to be ashamed about that, you know," Amon told her.

"It's going to make hiding harder," she whispered.

"Is that what you guys want to do?" Nagira asked.

Amon gave a one-shoulder shrug and Robin simply looked miserable. Nagira sighed. It looked like it was up him to make plans.

"Well," he said, "let's see what a few days of rest won't do, first, before we start worrying." Something occurred to the lawyer. "Robin?" The girl looked up at him. "How much have you had to drink lately?"

She shrugged. "A glass or two."

"You think she might be dehydrated?" Amon asked.

"Yeah, if you guys didn't have any water in there. You must have been inside the Factory for almost a day after it collapsed."

Amon frowned. "It was fairly warm because of Robin's Craft use."

"What are we going to do?" Robin asked.

Without thinking about it Nagira idly rubbed the kid's back. He stopped when he saw Amon's possessive scowl. It looked like his little brother had finally found someone, Nagira thought with amusement. Turning his attention back to Robin he answered her, "Get some liquids in you and give you some Tylenol to bring that temperature, I think. We'll see how you feel tomorrow."

Nagira helped Robin to her feet since his brother was still suffering from his bout with the chair. Just then the phone in his office rang. The three paused for a moment and exchanged glances. The phone rang several times before the answering machine picked it up.

"Nagira? This is Doujima again, I had such a fun time the other day I would love to go out on another date. So give me a call back as soon as..."

The lawyer dashed across the room to pick up the phone before she hung up. Amon replaced Nagira at Robin's side.

"Yurika! How's it going?"

"Thank God you picked it up. If I couldn't contact you I don't know what I was going to do. You need to get any 'friends' out of this country tonight. SOLOMON is sending the big guns, and if they are caught here when they are supposed to be dead..." her voice trailed off.

"What?!" He thought of Robin, and winced at the thought of sending her off without a proper rest. She couldn't of had more then a couple hours of sleep since yesterday, and Amon had even less. The thought of those two running in that condition chilled his blood. "Can't it wait a day or two?"

"No! They need to get out of here tonight! SOLOMON is going to be sending a team of Hunters, mostly Craft Users, in to 'help' with the Hunts for the next couple of weeks. I suspect that they are also going to be retraining us to insure loyalty. Any ways, I know that girl is powerful, but is she so powerful that she can take on several Craft Users working together?" Her voice sounded hurried and strained.

"Okay, I get the point. Thanks for giving me a heads up," he said, trying not to feel a stab of concern for the woman. Clearly Yurika was worried about it, she had to have a reason.

She sighed, with relief?, and said, "Really call me tomorrow, it was nice meeting you and I would like to go out with you sometime. I mean it. Oh, and I left a message for you at your house, you might want to erase it ASAP." _Click._

Nagira was left staring at the silent headset torn by conflicting emotions. Worry for his brother and charge, strange admiration for the woman he had just talked to, and irritation that she had left a problem for him to deal with. If SOLOMON got it into their heads to check his apartment...

Then erasing that tape might mean life or death for his two newest clients.

"Guys," he said, as Amon carefully laid Robin down on the couch again. The girl's eyes closed instantly, but Nagira could tell from the taughtness of her features that she was still awake, and listening. "Doujima says that you two need to leave tonight, there's some Hunters coming to 'help' the STN-J until the STN-J is fully recovered, and she doesn't seem to think that you two can hide from them. I don't think so either." He met his brother's eyes silently, and saw that Amon knew exactly what he was talking about. Right now a five-year-old armed with a stick could take the pair out, let alone a fully trained Hunter.

"I need to go back to my apartment, she said she left a message on the machine there, and it would be a bad thing if SOLOMON's agents raided it and found the recording. She seems to think that SOLOMON thinks you are dead. Meanwhile, Amon, you should buy some plane tickets to the destination of your choice, use my travel account, I'm sure you know how to access it." He checked his pocket for keys, and all but ran out the door. "Robin, you get some sleep."

* * *

The apartment was undisturbed, he noticed with a sigh of relief, and the message light on the answering machine was blinking. He hit the playback button and listened to Yurika's voice again. There is was, that same strained quality that made him want to jump up and run over to her place and play the hero. Heh, Yurika didn't need a hero, she was just as proficient with the guy as he was. Idly he wondered what she would be like on a date, maybe somewhere fun, a comedy club. She probably partied like no tomorrow, and afterwards...He smiled, a fun party girl like Yurika, some one who loved fun as much as he did, but could also pull through and do it, was exactly the type of woman he was looking for. Maybe he should call her up after all...

Besides, with Amon gone he was now missing his best source into what is going on at the STN-J, if he started dating Yurika he would be getting a new source that was even better then his brother, he hoped. Even if she was a spy.

He hit Erase and deleted the recording. He then took the tape out, put a fresh one in, and recorded a new greeting, something he did regularly. The old tape disappeared into a pile of audio tapes he did for depositions, hopefully for the rest of the foreseeable future, before turning to leave.

A quite tapping at the window was all the warning he had. A vague man-like shape appeared at the window and suddenly it burst inward, and the room filled with dark suited figures. Before he could react two of the grabbed him and forced him to his knees. A cloth appeared in front of his face and the last thing he saw before the chloroform took over was a dark man, and face shields like faceted bug eyes.

* * *

A/N: Yes, a cliff-hanger, and boy did I NOT see that one coming until I wrote it. Broke some things loose, it did, and no, I won't say more. You'll just have to find out like the rest of us.

This one probably has LOT 'o typos, because other then running it through spell check I didn't proof-read. I is lazy. The title, for those not in on Harry's jokes, is actually spelt correctly. One day I may get around to proof-reading some more. So don't worry.

Robin X Amon: Yeah, I figure everyone has limits, and Robin, as you can see, damn well near killed herself getting them out. That sort of thing has got to have consequences, like how they don't recommend doing more then three or four marathons in a year. Amon's near the end of his rope, too, he's just too manly to admit it.

Lara1786: Romance? We'll have too see. Right now it's more like OMG WE NEARLY DIED!!!1111! than OMG I HEART YOU11!11. They're thinking more like partners then anything else, really. Not that partners can't fall in love!

Antaera: Thanks for the reassurance. I'm not real good at judging my own stuff.

Sakura Rain: You mean I have to get an invitation to live in the gutter? Funny, I thought I was born there...

Thank you Rori-san, Poliphilio, Dark Mistress Mali, Lucifer's Garden, and Kawaii Pearl of Kickass. I hope this chapter meets with your approval.


	3. Silence, Spys, and School Teachers

Nagira didn't come back.

Amon and Robin stood in line at the airport to check in for their flight. Amon carried the bags, Robin still seemed out of it despite the three hours of sleep she had while they were waiting for Nagira to return. She was drinking a Bepsi, and Amon was relieved to see that she could keep it down. They were both tired. He hoped he would be able to sleep on the plane.

Nagira was missing.

Amon had waited as long as he dared for his brother's return, then dialed Nagira's apartment. Nothing. He didn't answer, but his message was different compared to the last time he had called Amon then tried Nagira's cell, only to get the voice mail message. He hung up without leaving a message—he didn't dare.

They left. Robin was still groggy and slightly feverish, although not, thank God, as blazingly hot has she had been. His shoulder hurt, dammit, but there wasn't anything he could do about it. He was wired with exhaustion and fear, and sick with worry over his brother.

It was bad enough that his parents were dead, that he never got to know his father, that his mother had Awakened and changed, and was killed when her insanity led to mass murder. Fortunately for Amon SOLOMON had taken him in, sheltered him and raised him, become father and mother to him. The only cost was his childhood, which had been blasted away during that one, blood-soaked, night. The only family he had left after that was his brother, and SOLOMON. In then end it was he who betrayed the organization.

Now his brother was missing, and they had to run. He had raided all of his hidden catches of money. He had to hope that it would be enough to tide them over until he found a means of employment.

Light gleamed momentarily off Robin's hair, and Amon found himself comparing the two women; his mother who could barely function toward the end as her Craft consumed her, and Robin, who seemed to become more real. More _there_ with each passing day.

Maybe it was because he was tired.

The line moved forward, and Amon found himself looking at the lady at the counter. He wondered what it would be like to have that kind of job, where screwing up meant you were fired, not killed. Where your fifteen-year-old coworker could go to school and make friends her own age and not lose her innocence. A job where his brother wouldn't disappear because he, Amon, had threatened or angered the wrong people.

Grief and guilt tore at him, but he was used to that. The grief of losing his mother, the awful gut-sucking guilt of shooting Kate and letting Touko get shot. The horrible _numbness_ as he led Robin to the warehouse, like a lamb to slaughter. At the time his mind simply could not deal with the emotions and had stopped sensing them, like burned pain nerves that no longer could transport messages of damage to the brain. He was a damned man—he knew and accepted it. The only thing he could hope for was the chance to do one good thing in his life.

He felt Robin slip her hand under his jacket and wrap her fingers around his belt. He looked down at her and draped his arm around her shoulders. If he could do one good thing…

The line moved forward another step.

His shoulder _hurt_. He was exhausted. Robin was sick, and he didn't know what they were going to do in the US. He just wanted to get _away_. It was somewhere else, some alien world in which brothers don't disappear and friends weren't on the other side of SOLOMON's laws.

Amon found himself face-to-face with the woman behind the counter. He handed her the fake IDs he had made weeks before, when he realized that they might need to flee the country. He felt a slight twinge of anxiety as the lady ran the IDs through the computer, but as promised the machine binged happily and the woman accepted the payment for two seats to the US. The next available flight was in four hours.

Security was a breeze—the guards allowed them through while they searched a white-haired old lady. Once through Amon steered the girl to one of the multicultural restaurants, even if she wasn't hungry, he was starving. The restaurant clearly served the American tourists and businessmen. They sat down and Robin looked at her menu blankly before putting her head on the table and closing her eyes.

"Not interested?" Amon asked.

Robin shook her head negatively in response.

He frowned. "You should still try to eat something."

She shrugged. "Soup, I don't care what kind," she answered.

He ordered for both of them, tomato soup for her and something forgettable for him. The food arrived after a few minutes and they ate in silence, Robin consuming the soup with no sign of illness. He hoped that Nagira was right, that it was just dehydration, and that once she had replaced the lost fluids she would be fine.

He suddenly lost his appetite. _God, Nagira._ Somehow, without thinking about it, he had made another decision. He had decided that his own brother was not as important to him as Robin. He felt like he had betrayed his brother by leaving the country, rather than staying to find him. Amon looked across the table to the girl. Despite the guilt and shame at leaving his own brother to whatever destiny Fate had in store for him, he still felt like he was doing the right thing. God help him.

It almost didn't matter. Nagira was still gone.

* * *

Being a school teacher meant that Mrs. Smith had plenty of time during the summer to travel the world, and yearly trips to see the relatives kept her Japanese fresh. She sat in coach and tried to read her Beatrice Small novel, but she was distracted by her seat-mates. On her left in the center seat was a girl who couldn't have been older than fourteen or fifteen. It wasn't that the girl was noisy or intrusive, quite the opposite. The girl had fallen asleep when she had sat down. Before she had fallen asleep Mrs. Smith had noticed the glassy look of her eyes, perhaps drugs the woman thought with disapproval. Mrs. Smith had certainly smoked a few joints during her hippie years, but the things children were doing these days were far beyond anything she had ever done, even as a college student. Really, it was their parents' fault. 

There was a rather intimidating man who looked, excitingly enough, like the hero in Love or Die, sitting on the other side of the girl. Mrs. Smith supposed they might be together, although why a young girl would be with such a dangerous-looking man was anyone's guess. Lurid tales of innocent young women seduced away from friends and family by dangerous older men danced her in head. She frowned, those tales were all very well and good Romance Land—but not in real life.

The meal cart came by and the man woke the girl up so she could eat. Mrs. Smith put down her book and concentrated on her food. Despite the stereotype airline food wasn't really that bad. She had read somewhere that the reason why it wasn't as flavorful as food elsewhere was because of the dry air up here, which carried fewer odors. Less smell equaled less taste.

From the corner of her eye Mrs. Smith watched the pair. The girl just picked at her food, occasionally taking a bite, and then stopping. The woman wondered if she was anorexic, she certainly looked ill and thin enough. The man had wolfed his down, and was now watching the girl impassively. He said something to her that Mrs. Smith didn't quite catch, despite her command of Japanese. The girl sighed, and took a larger bite, and then another and another, slowly working her way through the meal.

Mrs. Smith must have been staring too intently, because the pair suddenly turned and looked straight at her. They said nothing, simply gave her a look that told her she snooping where she didn't belong.

She pulled her book up close to her nose and started reading furiously, Lord Ryan and Annette the chambermaid were suddenly so much more interesting.

_Really_, she thought, _I should have brought along a Nora Roberts novel. I never meet odd people when I read Nora Roberts._

* * *

In the end she should have known better, Doujima later thought. She should have known better than to trust SOLOMON (but wasn't her father in the upper council? Shouldn't one trust one's father?). She should have known better than to take their word for anything. 

After the fall of the Factory she had talked to the head of the task force. Charlie had been most helpful, promising, in that sweet, smooth way of his (and oh, she had fallen for it at the time. She always did. He was that kind of man) that none of the people who had participated in the STN-J's raid on the facility would be punished for it. He had promised that the STN-J was safe for retaliation from SOLOMON. And she had believed him.

Too bad she had forgotten that Nagira wasn't a member of the STN-J. Now he was missing and it was all her fault. Well, hers and Amon's, and possibly Robin's. If it wasn't for them then Nagira would never have gone.

Doujima stared at the broken panes and busted door of Nagira's apartment. The manager had called the police when she heard the break in, but the police didn't come until quite some time afterwards. That, alone, was enough to tell Doujima that SOLOMON was involved, and not one of the many shady characters the lawyer probably dealt with on a regular basis. It was a good thing that _she_ was the one in the office at the time the call came in. Michael was spending his first night of freedom in _years _at Sakaki's place, where the boys were probably staying up all night playing video games. She didn't know how to tell the others that a _third _person in their party was missing, and after the operation as well.

To make matters worse she was starting to think in _italics_. Talk about lame.

Idly she picked up bits and pieces of things, before dropping them again. There wasn't any point, really. SOLOMON does a good job of covering its tracks. No, if there was any way to find out what had happened to Nagira it wouldn't be through physical evidence. She would have to use her much-vaunted contacts, even if those contacts had failed her.

Flipping open her phone, she started dialing.

* * *

It was, strangely enough, the pervious day. Somewhere in the flight they had crossed the International Date Line, and time had slipped backwards. The exhaustion that had lifted slightly during the flight had returned at full force. The plane had finally landed…somewhere. Robin wasn't quite certain _where_ they were, and she didn't much care. Later she could worry about things like where they were and what they were going to do. 

Sometime, on this day, Robin had incinerated everything that was between them and freedom. If she closed her eyes she could see herself, burning through the tunnel step by step, feeling everything that made her _her _slip away, until there was nearly nothing left. She had an odd feeling that if the hall beyond the metal door had not been clear, and she had needed to keep burning, then she would have been lost. Her personality would have burned away like the chaff in a wheat field after harvest. She would have been nothing. A void.

They were standing inside a cheap motel while Amon spoke with the old man at the desk. Robin was too tired to try to make her English work well enough to understand what the men were saying. It didn't matter.

A moment later the man handed Amon a couple of keycards for the room and gestured toward the hall, before turning back to his magazine. Amon didn't even turn to look at her—he simply trudged down the hall trailing her in his wake. The moment he entered the room he crossed directly to one of the beds and flopped on it face down—not bothering to even turn off the lights. Robin stood at the door and stared at the room blankly. There was nothing here, just cheap furniture.

Without conscious thought she drifted into the room, the door closing on it's own behind her. She could feel her heart pounding in her chest and throbbing in her temples, like it was some savage beast trying to get out. She was tired, and yet was far to keyed up to sleep. She touched the TV and the empty bed, fingers trailing along the comforter, before going to the bathroom, hoping that a nice long soak was what she needed. A moment after she turned the water on in the tub she turned it off again, frustration boiling beneath the surface of her mind. She didn't know what she wanted.

By their own motivation her feet drifted out of the bathroom again, to find that Amon was still in the position he had lain down in. Her feet walked across the room and took her with them, and a moment later she found herself sitting on the bed next to him, one hand on his back.

"Amon?" she said softly, hoping not to wake him if he was asleep, but still wanting to talk to him if he wasn't.

"Yes?" His voice was somewhat muffled by the pillow.

"What happened to Nagira?"

The ex-Hunter turned his head to look at her, charcoal eyes meeting green. Robin thought she saw a flicker of emotion in their dark depths, pain or fear or grief. She wasn't sure which. He sighed deeply, his back under her hand rising and falling.

"I don't know," he said.

"Oh." The girl tried to think for a moment, but found herself staring at the wall. "Oh," she repeated. She bit her lip. "If you didn't know where he was, then why did we leave Japan?" she asked finally.

"It was too dangerous for us to stay."

"But what if Nagira needs us?" she asked plaintively. "If he's missing then there's something wrong!"

"And do what, exactly?" he answered. "We're both exhausted. I'm hurt, and we don't know what's wrong with you. Nagira's an adult and a lawyer, he's going to have to take care of himself. He would not thank me for letting you get killed." He breathed in deeply again, and let it out in one shuddering whuff of air. "We can't do anything for him."

Robin was silent. She wanted to argue, and knew it was stupid. The time for argument was long past. They were here now (wherever _here_ was) and couldn't go back.

She was too tired to argue, any ways.

"Robin, go to bed."

She nodded mutely, flicked the switch near the head of the bed off, and curled up next to him, her back pressed against his side, and then shifted around—trying to find a more comfortable position.

"Robin?"

"Hmm?"

"The other bed is empty," he pointed out mildly.

She stilled. "Do you want me to leave?"

"Heh. You should," he said.

She sighed, disappointment washing over her, and stood up. The room tilted crazily around her, causing her to sit down abruptly on the bed again.

"Robin?" Amon prompted.

"I'm sorry…I'm dizzy."

He grunted in reply and then there was silence for several minutes while Robin waited for the world to stop spinning. The sheets rustled and a moment later Amon appeared at her shoulder. She smiled at him shakily, and then remembered that he couldn't see her in the dark.

Amon placed a hand on her shoulder, and then touched her brow. "Jesus. It hasn't gone away, has it?" he said, and then continued before she had a chance respond, "We're going to have to find you a doctor tomorrow."

"I'm sorry."

"I just wish I knew what was wrong with you."

After several more minutes of silence Robin finally felt strong enough to try standing again. This time the world did not tilt and everything seemed stable. She lay down in the empty bed, feeling oddly drained and cold.

* * *

Twelve hours later Doujima was walking a back street close enough to what remained of the Factory for her informant to sneak out, but far enough away that she wouldn't be caught. The STN-J was in a rather odd position, as Hunters who had been directly under Zaizen's control they were being viewed with suspicion. However, when they invaded the Factory they placed themselves clearly on SOLOMON's side when it came to their boss. Unfortunately they had to go rogue to do so, which gave SOLOMON even more reason to view them with suspicion. SOLOMON was walking around them on eggshells, all the while keeping a careful eye on them. 

One of the rescue crew appeared out of the shadows as she approached his hiding spot. It was Eustace, a man from the heart of London. She had met him years before at a dinner her father had held. He had been the only one willing to indulge the young daughter of the Mr. Doujima with a game of chess, and hadn't been to badly put out when she had soundly trounced him. She wondered vaguely if he would have time for a game or two before he left Japan, it was so hard to find good players these days.

She was only thinking about chess because she didn't want to think about what _could _be happening to Nagira.

"Hey Eustace." Doujima gave him her best smile—the one fake one that her friends had never seen.

"Ah, Yurika! I was wondering when you were going to pay me a visit. You thinking about playing a game or two?"

"Maybe later," she said, leaning back against the brick wall of the alley. "Listen, I need a favor, can you help me out?"

Immediately the man sobered—all traces of amusement leaving his face. _Bingo, something's up._ Doujima thought with satisfaction.

"What kind of favor?" he asked warily.

"A…friend of mine helped us the other night. He got out all right, in fact he was with me the entire time. The problem is he's missing, and his apartment's been tossed."

"Huh." The man looked away from her, watching the street. Doujima shifted nervously... If someone caught them… or if Eustace decided that his friendship with her weren't as important as his superior's orders… Well, she could be in some danger.

That's the way it was. If Zaizen had caught her spying he would have killed her, too. SOLOMON and its child organizations were like that.

Eustace shifted uneasily. "I can't tell you much, mostly because I don't know much myself, but the scuttlebutt has it that your buddy is in a lot of trouble."

"I guessed that," Doujima said sourly.

"Well, rumor has it that the two Hunters who died the other night left a few signs behind them that might indicate that they aren't as dead as some in SOLOMON would want. I hear that he's collateral."

_Shit._ "Any idea where they're holding him?"

"I haven't a clue, lady." The man shook his head sadly and shrugged. "As I said it's just a rumor."

"Oh. Thanks, I guess." It was worse than she thought, rumors were getting around but _she _was out of circulation. That…was not good. It meant that she, as well as the rest of the STN-J were under suspicion. Likely because she was the one who had that reported Amon and Robin were dead. If they had left signs that said otherwise…

Well, she hopped that if they had any sense they would _stay_ dead. Although sense was a bit much to expect out of the pair.

"I guess that means that game is off."

Doujima shrugged, whether they had a chance to play would depend entirely on if she could fine Nagira soon, or not. Until he was located she was going to spend every spare minute she had to find him.

They stood there a moment, two dark shadows in the alleyway, before fading away.

* * *

A strange beeping and the sound of water dripping into a coffee pot pulled Amon out of the odd, restless, sleep he had. Last night had been the first time in more then a year that Amon had shared a room with someone other then his goldfish, and he wasn't sure he liked it. Touko had always left before falling asleep, telling him that the last thing they needed was to move in together, but then he hadn't exactly encouraged her, either. 

It was much easier keeping his distance, in the end.

More sounds of someone up and about, padding barefoot around the room in a futile effort to be silent. Amon rolled over and glared bleary-eyed at the source of the noise. It was Robin, up and active in the early morning light, he realized with annoyance.

"I take it you're feeling better," he said sourly. Robin jumped slightly at the sound of his voice and gave him a guilty look.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to wake you up."

He continued to glare at her as she prepared her coffee. Robin, as always, seemed to be able to brush off any discomfort or embarrassment she had, even though Amon knew damn well that last night was probably the first night in her life that she spent in the same room with a man. _Hell, last night she was willing to sleep in the same _bed_ as a man._

It certainly wasn't what he had expected for a girl raised in a convent.

She poured in some non-dairy creamer that the motel had provided and stirred in some sugar, presumably to mask the taste of cheap coffee. Amon found himself watching the slender curve of her back, at some point she had taken off her heavy dress, only in her undershirt and slip. Noticing his gaze Robin held the coffee pot out inquiringly. Rather then explain himself he shrugged and let her pour him a cup. He took it from her and set it down next to the clock on the night stand, before getting up.

"What do you plan on doing today?" she asked.

He shrugged, "Find clothing, get the things we're wearing laundered." He looked at her sharply, "Find a doctor." Robin's brows drew together in annoyance at that last statement.

"I'm fine, really." He continued to watch her, which only seemed to annoy her further.

"Really." It was a statement of disbelief, not a question. Robin huffed slightly and glared at him.

"I feel fine," she said, taking great care to pronounce every syllable clearly. Despite the situation, his worries over the girl and his brother, it was still all Amon could do not to laugh. He was fairly certain that Robin would incinerate him on the spot if he erupted in her face, however.

Perhaps Robin read his thoughts. Her eyes narrowed dangerously at him. "Why don't you see a doctor, _you_ were _shot."_

He snorted. "Then perhaps we should both go." Before she could argue further he stood up and entered the bathroom, firmly shutting the door against any indignant reply.

* * *

The sound of silence. 

Dripping water echoed through empty halls. Some skittered in the dark, some small and fearful hunting the giant cockroaches that lived in Tokyo's underground; both hunter and hunted, predator and prey.

Just like he was.

Nagira leaned back against a concrete wall and squeezed his eyes shut against the oppressive dark. Open or shut, it made no difference, there was no light in this Hell hole. He hoped his brother and the kid had been able to escape. He didn't want to think about what could be happening to them if they hadn't.

The air was full of moisture and a hint of something foul. Nagira thought he might be underground somewhere, a basement of a complex, or a forgotten off-shoot of the subway system.

He hated the dark. As a child he'd been terrified of the dark and the things in it, terrified of the cellar and his closet. It was better then being terrified of the man who his mother said was his father, who had never hurt or threatened him in any way, but had an air of menace around him. Years later Nagira wondered just how his mother had been attracted to him. Lucky Amon, to barely have any memory of their father. Nagira had grown out of his fear of the dark, just as he had nearly forgotten his fear of the man. In any case, it was never truly dark in the city. He'd thought that old fear was forgotten, but now Nagira was discovering that it wasn't forgotten, merely put aside for a time such as this.

"Hello?" he called into the dark, hoping to hear something, _anything_, that might indicate that he wasn't the only human down here. He strained his ears—even one of his captors would have been welcome.

Nothing, only the faint scrabbling of rats and the distant sound of dripping water.

He stood, discovering that he wasn't tied up, and paced, trailing his fingers along the wall. He came to a corner and continued along the new wall until he touched metal, not concrete. Bars. A cell?

As a lawyer Nagira had seen the insides of jails and prisons while visiting clients or interviewing witnesses. Jails and prisons were always well-lit so that the guards could easily observe the prisoners. This was no Tokyo prison he was familiar with. He was completely alone.

Nagira stood, holding the bars of his cage, listening to the sounds of silence.

* * *

A/N Thank's to everyone who reviewed, and sorry about the wait. I'll try to do better, although the next chapter might take a bit of time to write. I'm doing a challenge over at Harry's conserning a pre-series story, and the parents of a certain Fire-Witch we all know and love. Wish me luck!


	4. Things Fall Apart

"I am fine." Robin repeated to Amon for what felt like the tenth time. "Why don't you go to the doctor, _you_ were _shot."_ She added pointedly. She remembered the way Zaizen's bullet had slammed Amon to the wall, and the way he had slumped to the floor. For one horrifying instant Robin was _sure _that he was dead, just as she had been _sure_ that day Raven's Flat had been attacked that he had died.

She would never forget, in all her days, the sight of the bullet slamming into him. It was a memory that would haunt her dreams for years to come.

And now he was acting as if he was perfectly fine, as if _she_ had been the one to nearly die.

"Then perhaps we should both go," he said, and then that infuriating man let the bathroom door shut in her face.

To prove him wrong she left the room and headed over to the breakfast buffet the motel supplied for its guests. She poured herself another cup of lack-luster coffee and a bowl of cereal. The food wasn't wonderful, but it was edible, and it wasn't too different from what she had been raised on. In Japan the only food she had been able to eat had been either Master's, or microwaved burritos or noodles bought in the frozen foods section of the local corner store. Everything else had been too strange for an Italian girl like her to enjoy.

_Here_ was apparently somewhere in North America going by the accents of the morning-newscasters, the US perhaps, or even Canada. Nagira had once said something about Amon having contacts within the US military. Contacts who didn't know about the STN-J or SOLOMON, who perhaps didn't even know what Amon's real name was, just that they owed him some favors. Perhaps that was why he had chosen this place, rather then Singapore or Hong Kong. It was one of the things she would have to ask him, later. When she wasn't being mad at him.

Her stomach soured after three bites of the tasteless cereal, and she pushed the bowl aside. Really, it was too early in the morning to eat anything.

When Amon came down a half an hour later she was sitting on a couch, watching TV. The morning show had been replaced with some kind of local news program. She hadn't been able to catch more than about three quarters of what was said, but she didn't want to, really. The news had the usual assortment of car crashes, murdered children, and school board meetings that seemed to permeate the airwaves. It left her feeling a bit depressed, SOLOMON in all its might strove against Witches, while ordinary humans used super-human strength in the form of cars or guns or bombs to wreck havoc that would shame the most power-mad Witch. It didn't take special powers in this day and age to commit mass atrocities. Really, it was no wonder she didn't feel like eating.

Studiously Robin ignored Amon's presence. Perhaps it was childish, but she couldn't help it. Once again her life had been turned upside down, and he was at the center of it. Out of the corner of her eye she saw him walk over to her and stand next to the couch, towering over her. Robin curled up tighter and tried to concentrate on the TV, but the show wasn't really that interesting. In a way his behavior was mildly unnerving, as if she was a strange microbe being examined under a microscope. She shifted under the weight of his silent regard, feeling irritable.

Amon broke the strained silence after a minute. "Have you eaten anything?"

She shrugged. "A little." He snorted, glanced at the not-very-empty bowl, and sat down on the other side of the couch.

"I spoke to the desk clerk. She said the best thing to do is go to a emergency room, they are required by law to treat anyone who shows up at the door."

"Oh." She blinked. "That would work for me, but you were _shot_. Wouldn't they have to report that?"

He shrugged, and then grimaced slightly. "It's a bone-bruise, nothing more. You, on the other hand…"

"You told me that you would go, too!"

"I lied. I tend to do that every now and again."

Robin glared at him, frustrated. "I won't go unless you go."

"Stubborn, aren't you?" he asked rhetorically. "I'll make you a deal. I'll _show you_ the wound, and if you still agree that I need a doctor we will both go. Afterwards we may have to leave the country again, if anyone asks too many questions."

Robin gave him a sharp look as the TV changed from the newscast to some sort of talk show, but she wasn't paying attention to that. Amon was being strangely accommodating. In the past he had simply hauled her off to the optometrist or the hospital or wherever he felt she should go without so much as a by-your-leave, so his insistence that she _agree_ to going to see a doctor was more then a little surprising.

Well, that was a mystery to be solved later, if she had the chance. In the mean time she nodded, agreeing to see his wound. Maybe it wasn't as bad as she thought. They made their way back up to their room and Amon stripped off his shirt as soon as the door was shut. It was a good thing, Robin thought, that she had spent all those months living in Japan, sharing a room with a typical Japanese business woman and watching Japanese television. Otherwise she wouldn't have been able to cover her reaction to the sight of Amon's lean frame. He removed the bandage on his injured shoulder, muscles rippling smoothly beneath his skin.

Of course she had seen half-naked men in underwear or antiperspirant ads, but this was the first time she had seen one in real life. It was…rather embarrassing; not the fact that Amon had his shirt off, but the kind of reaction it seemed to have on her. Part of her wanted to reach out and touch his muscles, to see if they were really as hard and smooth as they looked, but the other part of her was shocked at the very idea. She had been raised in a convent, for goodness sakes! She would have been a nun, had not life intervened! To think of a man, especially one that she liked and respected, in such a carnal matter was sinful. Robin blushed and looked away.

"Here," he said, seemingly unaware of her inner turmoil. "Look."

Reluctantly she looked back at him, trying to avoid looking at anything other then his shoulder. Certainly not his biceps or six-pack, and definitely not his face. She didn't want to know if he was aware of how uncomfortable she was. His wounded shoulder was black and blue with bruises centering on a puncture wound. Hesitantly she reached out and touched it, jerking back at his startled intake of breath. The wound was a bit swollen and tender, but not, she discovered as she trailed her fingers lightly over it, overly-warm. There was no sign of infection.

"The Orbo did enter your bloodstream, after all." She said suddenly. Robin was slightly startled by just how calm she sounded, not at all as if there was a half-naked (_and attractive_ a little voice said) man sitting on her bed.

"Yes." Robin noticed for the first that he seemed to have a slight sheen of sweat on his face and body, and realized that he was in greater pain then he had let on.

"What did it feel like?" she whispered, mesmerized by the scent of him. It was oddly spicy, like the desert wind. She knew that she should leave and let him get dressed, but she didn't really want to. Now she knew why lust was considered one of the deadly sins, it was so seductive, so able to bypass the most disciplined of minds… She stepped away from him.

Amon didn't seem to notice.

"It was like…being struck by lighting is the only way to describe it. It hurt, but not like being _hit_. It felt like someone had poured acid down my nerves. It still hurts, a bit." He shook his head, and much to Robin's secret relief put his shirt on again. "We should go."

Robin crossed her arms and glared, trying to cover up her response to him. "Your shoulder—"

"I didn't convince you, did I? Heh, all right." He stood up. "Let's go."

* * *

_If I was a SOLOMON operative, and I had a man I needed to hide, where would I put him?_ That was the question of the week. Of course, Doujima mused, she was, in fact, a SOLOMON operative; and there had been times in her life when she had needed to hide men, from her father if nothing else. She smiled at the memory of Jake Baker hiding in her closet, the small one just outside her bathroom at home, not the big one that her father was sure to search, while Mr. Doujima lectured her about the solemnity and seriousness of study, the need to Hunt Witches, and why she shouldn't spending her precious time messing around with Boys and shopping..

While she was not a slacker when she needed to be, Yurika was not a Type A personality, preferring the more laid back approach to life, spying, and shopping. Despite her father's pressure she was never able to change that. Fortunately this assignment really let her show her stuff. _Maybe that would finally make good old Dad back off._

Poor Jake. The linen closet really wasn't made for hiding a second-rate Casanova. No wonder he eventually hooked up with that girl from Nebraska and settled down to raise pigs. In a way, she couldn't blame him, he clearly wasn't cut out to be the type of guy who could go out with a girl like her.

Well, poor Jake only had to hide from his former-girlfriend's angry father, Nagira was something else. She had no idea where he was, but she knew someone who might, if he would even talk to her. Father Juliano. He was the highest ranking SOLOMON agent in Japan, currently, and the only one who might be inclined to help the person who hid Robin.

Unless Robin was still being Hunted by him. Unless the STN-J was in trouble for aiding her. Doubt and hope were one and the same, and stood abreast with fear.

Now, if only she could work up the courage to beard the old dragon in his den.

* * *

The phone rang at some ungodly hour of the morning, Doujima rolled over and swatted at it in that vague hope that it would shut up and let her sleep, but the damn thing was too far away to hit without getting out of bed. To make matters worse at some point a Far-More-Awake-Doujima had programmed the damn thing with the most annoying ring that she could find, and Trying-To-Sleep-Doujima cursed her soundly. She had spent the day making useless calls and searching nearby churches, but it appeared that Father Juliano had already left the country. She probably wouldn't be able to contact him while he was flying back the Headquarters. _That's assuming he even wants to talk to me._ Which was a hell of an assumption. The higher up Priestly-types could be insular as hell.

She buried her head in her pillow, trying to block out the damn phone. Sleep was something that she was _not_ used to not having on a regular basis, and in the last couple of days Doujima had been the longest she had ever deprived herself since training to be a Hunter.

_Ring_

_BEEP_

"_Doujima? This is Michael. I know you can hear me so pick up the phone! The Chief wants to know where you have been for the last couple of days, and…"_

She gave up. Once Michael started calling he wouldn't stop until she answered. Groaning, Doujima pulled herself out of bed and groped for the reservoir. "Hi," yawn, "Mike. How's it going?"

"Finally. Where the hell were you? I've been calling and calling and…" Doujima rolled her eyes at Michael's litany. Really, all he did was try to piss her off.

"Michael, is this really important enough to call me in the middle of the night?"

Over the phone she heard him take a deep sigh, and it was obvious his answer was forcibly calm. "Four SEEDS turned up dead two hours ago, and there are more missing. SEEDS, not Witches. The only reason _we_ know is because of the Chief's contacts in the Japanese Police."

She sat up abruptly, the sudden kick of adrenaline banishing sleep completely. "SEEDS? Are there…. Scratch that. I'll be over in a couple minutes."

Another sigh. "Hey, thanks."

_Click._

Sleepiness forgotten she got up and dressed, trying not to hurry. If SOLOMON's Hunters were hunting more then Witches, Nagira might be… She didn't want to finish that thought. _He's human._ SOLOMON wouldn't kill a human, would they?

Of course they would.

Mechanically she pulled the cover off Parakeet's cage and changed her food and water. Keet woke up long enough to chitter at the unusual nocturnal intrusion before tucking her beak back over her shoulder and going to sleep. Briefly Doujima thought about taking her to Raven's Flat, but decided against it. If it looked like she was going to be away for a few days she could always ask the apartment manager to take care of the bird.

Out to the car, and away. She could take the subway, like she normally did, but it was rather late at night, and the last thing Doujima needed was to deal with some drunk asshole who couldn't tell the difference between a two yen hooker, and a business woman like herself. No, her car was the way to go.

"What took you?" Michael's voice snapped. He was sitting down in his chair, his splinted leg extended out in front of him awkwardly. Silently she waved a box of doughnuts at him and set it down next to his computer.

"Krispy Kreme is open twenty four hours, I thought you might like something to eat…What's wrong?" He was staring at the box, the light from his screen reflecting off his glasses, obscuring his eyes. "Michael?"

"She used to bring doughnuts. At night. We'd have doughnuts and coffee…"

No need to say who _she_ was. Doujima sat down next to him, carefully avoiding _her_ chair. "She's dead, Michael. They both are. I'm sorry."

He looked at her, his face expressionless, but Doujima was used to him by now. They'd worked together for several years, now, and Doujima was _good_ at reading expressionless faces. "How do you know? How can you know? Maybe they…" Doujima cut him off.

"No. They died. I know because they can't be Hunted if they are dead. SOLOMON doesn't care about corpses."

"So you think they…" But Doujima was shaking her head.

"I have to believe they died, Michael. I have to believe their bodies were burned to ashes in the Factory, and that there is _nothing_ left of them. I have to believe that, because if I believe they are alive, well, I wouldn't be the only one believing that, and they would have the hounds of SOLOMON hot on their scent. So they're dead. Have a doughnut."

"So they _did_.."

"_Drop it, Michael._"

And he did. Doujima hoped that he got her point. Whether or not Robin and Amon were dead didn't matter, what mattered is that the STN-J _acted_ as if they were. It was the only thing the team could do for that pair.

Well, there was one other thing. But it could wait until _she_ had a cup of tea. Doujima hated the coffee that Robin bought, and the tea stocked in the break room frankly stank. Fortunately Kosaka insisted on drinking only the best Oolong. She wasn't above stealing from the boss at a time like this. Speaking of the boss…

"Where is everybody?"

"Miss Karasuma is still at the hospital and Haurato's with her. The Chief is out looking at bodies, Hattori is with _him._"

Doujima frowned. "I thought they released Miho yesterday."

"No, ah, they think she was accidentally poisoned by whatever was used to produce Orbo… They aren't saying much, but she's got some of SOLOMON's doctors looking at her. They do say they think she's going to fine in a couple weeks, though."

"Oh." _I guess I really have been out of the loop. Stupid Nagira-Who-Is-Missing. _She decided to change the subject. If she _wanted_ to listen to gruesome tales of medical maladies she could _always_ give her mother a call. "What was this about dead SEEDS?"

Michael's spine straightened and he put down his doughnut. "The Chief thinks that there is some sort of in-fighting going on in the walled City between some of the Witches, and the SEEDs just happened to get caught in the crossfire."

Doujima snorted. Infighting among the Witch community was serious, but not serious enough for Michael to drag her out of bed for a couple of bodies that could surely wait till morning. "And what do you think?"

Pause. Michael glanced over his shoulder and lowered his voice, probably without being aware that he was doing so. "I think it was the Hunters SOLOMON sent over to 'help us out'. We don't Hunt SEEDs, Doujima." Michael's voice had an unusually sharp edge.

"I know." Doujima sighed. She was half-tempted to tell him that a couple of cold bodies in the morgue didn't rate getting her up so damn early, and would have except… Well, except for the fact that Nagira is missing. Nagira, who probably knew more about the local Witch community then the STN-J did.

"We just keep track of them. Find them if they disappear. We don't _Hunt_ them."

"You _don't_ need to tell me, I _know_."

The weird thing was, Michael should have known those bodies weren't an emergency, although they definitely signaled a problem. So why did he call? She took in the coffee and doughnuts, the creepy air of Raven's Flat at night, and the way he seemed to be jittering on the edge of completely loosing it and felt a pang of sympathy.

Too bad she had to get down to business. "You said something about other SEEDs missing. What about humans?"

There wasn't any humor in his laugh. "In a city this big? There are _always_ missing humans. Why do you ask?"

She took a deep breath and dropped the bomb. "Nagira's missing, and his apartment's been tossed."

Michael spat out his coffee. "SOLOMON?" he choked.

"After what happened the other night, who else?"

"Shit."

That was all that needed to be said.


End file.
